The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted. — D.H. Lawrence

Barack Hussein Obama’s presidential portrait, as you can see above, is characteristically incongruous when viewed among portraits of his predecessors.

And there just could be a concealed subtext to be found in his choice of artist. Not every president has himself painted by an artist best known for paintings of black women cutting off the heads of white people.